'Photoshop'

Making Of 'Hellboy'

To keep the background from becoming boring, I applied a texture to the background using my texture brushes. I applied texture effects on a different layer as well, so that if it turned out to be more than I wanted I could knock it down a touch (Fig.09).

Fig.09

Lighting the Background:

To add more movement to the background, and to make my figure “pop out” from the scene more, I lit up the background with a natural, ambient light coming in from the top left corner. I also created an artificial light source at the bottom of the image. I rendered my background objects according to these lighting conditions (Fig.10 and Fig.11).

Fig.10

Fig.11

Colouring the Figure:

At this point, I started colouring the character with base colours. In order to see my figure more clearly, I reduced the opacity of the background (Fig.12).

Fig.12

Basic Shading:

I continue to shade my figure, keeping the directions of my light sources in mind all the while (Fig.13).

Fig.13

Basic Lighting:

I lit up the figure based on the light sources. Lastly, I blended the figure with the background with a little colour correction (Fig.14).

Fig.14

First Texturing:

Using load selection, I selected the layer that the figure was on and I applied texture on a different layer (Fig.15).

Fig.15

Soft Lighting:

On a different layer, I defined the figure’s outlines with soft lights. With this process I separated the figure from the background and defined it more (Fig.16 and Fig.17).